The Tragedy of Tiller

George Tiller is dead.

If you did not know, George Tiller had the most gruesome abortion record in the country. He would perform his "procedure" on any baby, in any trimester, for any reason. He had the blessing of Kansas' former governor Kathleen Sibelius, previously the most pro-abortion executive in the country.

He was unashamed about what he did. Pro-choice groups lauded him a hero. Now he is dead, murdered in his church of all places, and he will become a martyr.

This should never have happened. Had Kansas a governor with any moral mettle, the doctor would have been behind bars, at the very least for the past half-dozen years with many dozens still facing him, for the atrocities he had committed upon the unborn.

Law should have settled Tiller's case long ago. Law failed Tiller. Law failed Kansas. Law failed the thousands dead at Tiller's hand.

In the fertile soil of unenforced law, anarchy grows. Today, a vigilante entered Tiller's church and shot him dead. He was serving as usher today at his Lutheran church in Wichita.

Where was Tiller's pastor? No, not today. Three weeks ago. Three months ago. Three years ago. You've got someone sitting in your congregation, actually meeting and greeting folks as an usher on Sunday mornings, who during the week dismembers babies for a living, and you say nothing? "Hey, George, wanna play a round of golf on Saturday?" Where is the prophetic outrage? The pastor and every person in that congregation are culpable for the blood on Dr. Tiller's hands, and I would contend, for the very blood of Dr. Tiller.

Murder. The vigilante should be tried and sentenced for first degree murder. Self-defend all day long. Protect the innocent by laying down your own life. It is legal to kill another to protect an innocent if the innocent's life is in imminent jeopardy. I don't think Mr. Tiller (hardly a doctor) posed an imminent threat to anyone at his church. To execute law and preserve justice, that is the role of the state. It's failure does not permit one man to take unto himself the gravest task of the state, the death sentence of another man.

With President Obama taking the mantle from Ms. Sibelius as the most pro-abortion executive in the country, Tiller's death will serve to foment like kerosene on a riotous bonfire the hatred of the pro-choice movement for those who are pro-life. What Matthew Sheppard was to the homosexual movement, so George Tiller will become to pro-abortion America. The pro-life movement will become synonymous with wild-eyed zealotry.

Abortions will not become uncommon and rare. They will become unrestricted, and do not be surprised if protesting abortions becomes hate-speech and felonious.

George Tiller's death, rather than saving the life of the unborn, will do nothing to stem the tide of abortions but will actually make them more accessible. His death was criminal. So to was his life.

It's a travesty of justice all the way around.

(read Isaiah 59:1-8 here. Grievous.)

Just another day: In the merry, merry month of May

Is it really just another day?!? I don't think so. This is an odd time. Consider.

• The nuke's on you. North Korea just detonated a nuke. Boom. Okay, it was last week. Still, boom! Considering we've lived with nukes all our lives, we have treated that little rumble in the western Pacific as no more significant than another Yankees win. I don't think we can fathom the inferno and devastation that a well-placed nuke would bring. Perhaps those survivors from the outskirts of Hiroshima or Nagasaki could enlighten us.
  

Thing is, in our lifetimes, the nukes have been held by folks who knew and understood the serious nature of the weapon in their hands. They comprehended the mass destruction that would be unleashed upon their foes. These nations were sane and civilized with the possible exception of Pakistan.

Now, North Korea has a nuke. Does anybody remember their testing of a ballistic missile a few months back? One of Barack Obama's first tests in the international sphere? Not that NK would attach a nuke to a missile. That could reach the US.

And Iran's on the brink. Yawn.


• Race is on. The very best mind in constitutional law to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court is an hispanic woman. Just so happens to be. Far more subtle than a nuke is Ms. Sotomayor. Could have far greater impact on the dissolution of our nation, long term. It's not her heritage or her skin color. It's her devastatingly destructive opinion of law. Whim. Eyes wide open vice blind. Determining the merit of the individual vice weighing them in the objective balance of law. Perhaps we'll get to see Sharia introduced at the SCOTUS. Speaking of which...
  


• Greece is the word. Muslims are rioting in Greece. An insult to the Koran, I guess. Rotterdam, second largest city in the Netherlands, now has a population comprised mostly of Muslim immigrants. And they want the laws changed (here). They've got a groove. They've got a meaning.


• America's most wanted. David Jones, not the former Monkee but the pastor, never intended to subvert San Diego law, but that's what he's done. His crime? He and his bride had the audacity to hold a Bible study in their home. GASP! (here) Apparently it is a religious assembly and requires city permits to have such an assembly outside of of religious zoning. Ten to fifteen folks in your home for a Bible study. Wicked criminality. Tupperware parties, poker nights, Super Bowl gatherings, gay love-ins, or pot smokeouts? All okay. Bible studies? Das ist verboten! Ver ah your papers?? It'll cost 'em over ten-grand to get the required permits.


• Don't tread on me. Unless of course your an American whose not from America and really don't want to assimilate into the American fabric. Debbie Lucas hung a flag in her office at a hospital (in Texas of all places) in honor of Memorial Day weekend. When she returned to her Dilbert cubicle, it had be not only taken down but tossed on the floor. There had been complaints, the most vocal coming from her boss who had come to America 14 years earlier. Perhaps the boss should have moved to Venezuela. Or Cuba. You can toss the American flag on the floor all you want down there.

At least gas prices are going back up.

Pixar

"Up" starts tomorrow, and it will be a hit.

Yeah, I hear you. Not really going out on a limb, am I? The cynics who think Pixar's success is pure fluke (also, the same folks who think the human eye a result of random mutation) bet that the film company will show its humanity and cough up a clunker any day now. Their hope is tomorrow. I don't think so.

CNN probes Pixar's production team on the eve of Up's release trying to get to the bottom of home run after home run. Steroids? No. The creators themselves chalk it up to the fact that the entire team is comprised of artists. Ahhh. A bit of sophisticate snobbery. (You can read CNN's article here). I think their success is easier than that. Here's my take.

1. Story. A good story is a good story is a good story. Tell me a story. Please. Keep it simple, toss in a few twists, and voila! Nuance is great for the nerds writing the reviews or for the dweeb teaching the college level course on the Significance of Proletariat Oppression in Pixar Productions. The rest of us want a story we can track. Pixar always gives you a great story.


2. Characters. Give me people or critters to care about. Give me someone to loathe. And make them normal. Hollywood and Rockefeller Center, NY are not normal. Nebraska is normal. Montana is normal. Pixar always delivers superb characters. The old guy in "Up" was a hit in my eyes the first time I saw him. When I heard Ed Asner's voice coming out of him, he only got better (despite Ed's lefty leaning tendencies...segue...)


3. Issues. Leave the lefty issues out. The environment is not dying (I fear we may get that in "Up"). All corporations, especially big oil, are not evil. Leave it be! Amazing that they resisted it in Nemo and Monsters, Inc. There's enough stuff that timelessly touches all of us where we live without getting a NOW or Greenpeace commercial.


4. Art. Pixar set the bar higher than any company even though an animated movie could go with Toy Story. Then they kept setting it higher with each subsequent movie. The animation is objectively beautiful. The screen is a feast for the eyes. Much of animation today is ugly. On purpose. Pixar does not give such an assault. I've sat in the darkness shaking my head at the extraordinary complexity and beauty in so simply drawn characters.

Tomorrow "Up" hits the screen. No doubt we will once again be treated with a feast for the eyes, the heart and the mind without the slightest hint of guilt in the aftermath. That is Pixar at its best.

It's too bad more non-animated movies don't try their hand at Pixar's formula. It's not cosmic. It used to be the norm. Were it so again, Hollywood might see the run on the box-office they have desperately longed for.

Remembering

They marched for scores of miles through the snow for there were no half-tracks. The trail left by these beleaguered soldiers required no Indian scout to follow. The blood from their feet clearly demarked where Washington's army had been and where it went.

Farmers and their sons took up arms against their Mother Country not understanding the nuances of failed diplomacy or the particulars of Britain's increasing oppression. They did know that their farms and lives were at stake and that the British demands would only grow greater. War was upon them. Without a uniform, ill-clad and unshod, oft with farm implements as their weapon, the men of the American Revolution went to fight for freedom. And to die.

Do the young men and women enlisting today understand the hatred of Koran-believing Islam toward things of the west, toward America and western Europe? Many, probably not. Do they know the beauty of our Constitution and the soul-stirring weight of the Declaration of Independence? Do they understand the difference between a Republic and a Socialist state?

Probably not.

Many today will certainly swear an oath to the United States of America to serve in her military with hope of getting an education. Many want to see the world. Some just follow their friends. But during the Revolution, there were farmers and preachers, barbers and teachers, who took up arms because that's what others were doing. Their motives may not have been the red, white, and blue.

And still, they shed their blood.

Today we have fresh graves of folks little older than boys and girls who were willing to wear the uniform of our great nation though perhaps not full grasping why we fight. They died fighting the enemy though they might not have fully comprehended why he was the enemy.

For all those who, little understanding why they swore an oath, died in service to the United States of America, I thank God. I give thanks to their families for raising sons and daughters willing to lay down their lives for their friends.

Dear God,

For the graves that are fresh, bemarked by a new white cross,
For the graves that are freshly mowed and have been so for two centuries now,
For the graves that are unknown, a spot in some forest, perhaps beneath where a city has grown up or where now stands a baseball field,
For those who have died on the field of battle in service to the United States,
I offer my deepest gratitude.

Please bless their families for the great sacrifice they have made.
Bless the sons and daughters who will not know their dad or their mom. Help them to one day know what an extraordinary thing their parent did on that fateful day. Help them to know that their dad or their mom is a hero.
Bless the moms who did not want to see their child go into service but let them go anyway. Bless the dads who instilled in their child courage and character.

Until you return and set all things right, we will continue to war. Hasten the day of your return so that fresh graves would no longer be necessary.

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who made the greatest sacrifice,
Amen.

The days ahead look grim for America.

Economically, we've plunged into the deep end of the debt pool. With ankle weights. And wearing a flak vest.

Internationally, we've shaken hands, bowed to the waist, and kissed the posterior of most every evil dictator on the planet.

Militarily, we've cut so deep our machines are decades older than the people operating them.

Socially, we're ruder, cruder, and prouder than a boar in the rut.

Morally, we're back-stroking in sewage and savoring the stench. Horror movies have become snuff films. Music lauds satisfying any sexual deviance. Literature has gone the way of the dodo.

Long term, America might power out of this; short term, things look mighty grim.

What has brought on this full-scale entropy? We refuse to say, "No."

Civilization necessitates a healthy recommended daily allowance of the word "no." The more we say "no" to ourselves, the fewer laws we need. If I restrain myself, isn't a 30 mph sign a bit absurd for a residential neighborhood? "Duh!"

Parents today refuse their children nothing. Rather than the child getting to a level of rebellion and the parent laying the board of education to the seat of learning, the child continues to crank up the octane of their tantrums until they break the will of their parents. Game, set, and match to the four-year old brat.

To teach a child that the sun doesn't orbit their little noggin' and that all of humanity is not at their beck and call, parents must introduce them to "no" and to the discipline that arrives at its violation.

Educators will not and some cannot fail students. "What would that do to their fragile psyches?" So we graduate morons with the work ethic of Paris Hilton. Or is that redundant?

To reestablish sanity in our schools, teachers and principals must be allowed to establish boundaries and enforce them. They must be allowed to use the word, "no."

Employers cannot fire employees. Government refuses to let corporations die a natural death because people might lose their jobs thereby creating an unmotivated (or European) workforce.

Say "no!" Fire a worker or two and see how productivity picks up. If it doesn't, fire a few more. It's amazing what can get done when the workers actually want to be there. Not going to happen with unions blocking the way.

And, oh, our indulgent obesity (I say this after gaining twenty pounds). We can't deny ourselves another Twinkie or a second Big Mac. At least we're washing it down with a quart of zero-cal Dr. Pepper. If I get too large to walk, I can join the Ride-a-Cart 500 at the local Wal-Mart. Pedestrians on the right. Bubba-buggies on the left.

You can say "no" (Keith!). It's a good thing. Pounds drop. Smaller trou. New wardrobe (or back to the old one). Longer life expectancy. Fewer medical problems. Your knees can actually support you.

This inability to say "no" has infected the church, too. I'm not surprised to see stuff outside the church like "Go With Your Gut" seminars and "I Can Do It" conferences, or writing books like "It's All About You" (all real titles). It's the lie of Satan, "You, too, can be a god." This heresy has infected the church. When talking about sin gives way to salving the soul, when doctrine gives way to drama, when plainly teaching the truth gives way to bringing 'em in with production, then the church has ceased to be the church. It's become no more relevant than a junior high pep rally at best, and at worst, it stands as an apostate enemy of God.

You want "your best life now?" Don't pick up the heretical book that title by America's favorite charlatan. Pour yourself into what God tells you in His word. And He says, "No." No to adultery, extra-marrital sex, or non-husband-wife relationships. No to murder. No to stealing. No to gossip, slander, and libel. No.

Christians might query, "Isn't everything "yes" to us in Christ?" (referencing 2 Corinthians 1:19-20). For those who have already come under the lordship of God in Christ, they know enormous freedom, but all the junk in the previous paragraph remains contrary to God. The difference is now, as a believer through the working of the Holy Spirit, the Christian has the power and desire to obey. They are yoked to Christ and follow His direction and guidance. They are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. As they submit to God, He guides them in all truth and righteousness. To establish a church and worship service on "yes" paints a false picture to those who live in rebellion to God or those who have accepted Christ as Savior for only a short time and still struggle with the issues of the "old man" who fights against the things of the Spirit.

As a country, as individual churches, as individual Christians, we would do well to reacquaint ourselves with "no." If we refuse, our race to irrelevance will only accelerate on all levels.

Science v. Religion II

Last week, the headlines across cyberspace announced, "THE MISSING LINK FOUND!" In keeping with my last post, rather than pitch my Bible in the trash, I kicked back waiting for the other shoe to fall. Every year since I can remember, a missing link has been found, and every year since I can remember, a few days, weeks, months after the announcement, a retraction gets printed somewhere in the bowels of the paper or web-site.

This time it only took a week (here and here). The fossil that looked like a half-million year old lemur is just that, a lemur-like critter from some indeterminable time. Did anyone really think it a link between monkey and man? You got me.

Mr. Darwin contended that the fossil record, as more and more fossils were unearthed, would give weight to his theory that animals transitioned between kinds. That has proven a major problem for evolutionists because the fossil record has shown a dearth of fossils pointing to linkage. On the contrary, they point to clear and distinct kinds. Almost like they were created that way (oops!).

Still, America remains duped that Darwinian evolution is great science. It's proven! It's fact! No, it's a theory and will ever remain a theory because it cannot be tested and cannot be proven. That doesn't dissuade evolutionists from asserting the "factual nature" of evolution. In my local paper, a science teacher dismissed Intelligent Design or any assessment of science in light of the biblical creation as unscientific. He avered, "If an idea (like intelligent design) cannot be objectively tested, then it is not science."

That's utter rot. Examine the evidence. Postulate your theory. Continue to examine your evidence and see how the theory holds. That's the science of prehistory. We have no witnesses (other than God) to day one so we have no one we can question. Creating an experiment to cause evolution (interesting verbs, don't you think?) has proved fruitless. If we use untestability to delineate science and non-science, then Darwinian evolution falls short.

Now we have another article on Fox indicating life on earth MAY have begun earlier than previously thought. Ahhh-hah. Note the qualifier. Rather read the article (here) and notice all the qualifiers, the might-haves & could-haves, as they discuss these theories.

No, I don't think I'll be chunking my Bible into the kitchen trash any time soon. The heavens declare the handiwork of God. Yes, they do.

Bias

Drudge noted that Time magazine is running its seventeenth cover with an Obama on it in the past year. 17! That's once every three weeks!!

Surely it has nothing to do with the title (and content) to Bernard Goldberg's book on the 2008 election, "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media." That's the actual title, parentheses and all.

It couldn't be that. Surely.

Seventeen?!?

QotD: An American patriot...from Great Britain!

A few months ago I linked a speech in the European Parliament where Brit Daniel Hannan unleashed his anger upon British Prime Minister Gordon Brown over the squandering of national wealth and the burdening of England with a welfare state that would make Trotsky proud. In case you missed it, listen to his speech here.

A few nights ago, he joined Sean Hannity on his eponymous program and his ability to articulate historical Americanism goes unmatched in the modern era...and he's a Brit! The video is a bit lengthy, but I want you to savor the words of someone with the deepest admiration for our nation. I almost stood and cheered!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Daniel Hannan:

"Your country is great and prosperous and free because government is constrained and because the visionaries who wrote your constitution who knew what they were doing when they drafted that document and who understood where unconstrained government leads because they fought against it. They created a system of checks and balances that would keep the state small and the citizen big.

"Now if you start going down this road towards a more European welfare model and more European health care model, more public spending, more spending on education, being nicer in your foreign policy, all of those things, you make your country less American. You make it more like everywhere else. And that isn't going to make people like you anymore, it's going to make them respect you less.

"The reason that your country is respected and honored in the world is precisely because it's been as your founders understood it, it's been the city on the hill. It's shown us how by adopting a model based on personal freedom and the decentralization of power based on Jeffersonian democracy and disbursed decision making, how you can make people prosperous and successful and strong. And the world owes you a debt. Because the vision of your constitution didn't just keep you free, it inspired your fathers to take that freedom to other continents as well."

Pass the fish and chips! Why can't foreigners like that run for office? Instead we get Ah-nold. Alas. If you'd like to hear the entire exchange, click it here.

By the way, let me encourage you to forward his words or the links to his videos to those you know. Our national fabric is unraveling. So grab a needle and thread and forward this to friends and family.

God's peace!

Cartoon of the Day: Executive meddling

The presidential overreach continues as Barack Obama as the executor of American laws draws a gas mileage line in the sand. Lisa Benson takes her pen to the issue:

copyright 2009 Lisa Benson

No doubt we will see expensive fuel efficient cars coming out of what has become the government run auto industry to try and bolster their profits. Does anybody remember the 70's? 55 mph? Ridiculous lines at the gas station? ALL SELF-INFLICTED!!! Someone recently wrote, "If you try and inject stimulus into dieing (sic) companies you get a demon retard economy." We're getting there.

Science v. Religion

Our local paper reported Sunday on the Texas state school board coming to terms with science controversies in the classroom. A sub-story explored the "religion controversay" and how one science teacher believes that science reinforces his faith (here).

Rather than seeing science and faith/religion as controversial, the teacher separated them into "how" and "why." Science tells us how things happen. Religion tells us why they happen. In other words, religion has no place within the scientific disciplines because it is irrelevant to science.But the truth is that much of science and the scientific method was birthed within Christendom. God encourages man to know Him and to seek Him through His revealed word, the Bible. While God cannot be known exhaustively, He can be known truly (Schaeffer). That means what we read in the Bible is true about God. No, we cannot know all there is to know about Him. If that were true, He would be finite and could not be God. That does not mean that we cannot know the truth about Him. We can and we do through His word and through His creation.

Men of old (Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Descartes, Faraday, Boyle as examples) posited that if this were true of the Special Revelation, the Bible, then it should be true of the General Revelation, all of creation, as well. The Bible declares that the heavens declare the handiwork of God and all creation reveals His glory. With that knowledge, men of God moved with confidence into the world with the knowledge that a) the world could be known, and b) what could be known about it would reveal even more of the magnificence of the God who created it.

There is a line between science and God, but it is not vertical. It's horizontal. If, and let me emphasize the word if, in fact God created the universe, then all of the sciences, yea even all academic disciplines, are revelatory about the God who is there. Science is submitted to God in truth, though not in practice. The line does not separate science from God but brings it to its rightful place under the authority of and in submission to the God who spoke the universe into being.
Today, God is not permitted within the fields of science, yet more and more the evidence points to a God who fine-tuned not only man but the entirety of the cosmos. He is dismissed from the answer from those who purport to seek the truth. Which begs the question, if He is the answer but is not allowed to be the answer, can man ever come to know the truth?

This dismissal is most troubling when it comes from scientists who are Christian. When evidence appears to run contrary to the Bible, something's gotta give. Do I go with appearance? Or do I go with the word of God? For the atheist or agnostic, this is a no-brainer. God's word carries no more weight than Green Eggs and Ham, so they happily run with the contrary. The believer, because of the overwhelming tide within academia and society, has often compromised his view of Scripture and of God because of the appearance of where the scientific evidence leads.

Since the time of Darwin, those theories based upon appearances have ever been in a state of flux. How old the universe? How old man? The theories are ever changing to accomodate the appearance of the evidence.

So very much evidence within the scientific realm points to God (DNA as an example). So very much points to Genesis (geochronometers, flood strata, and yes, even the fossil record). The Bible is not a book of science, but where it does touch the scientific realm, it does speak truly.

Trying to divide God from science is wholly unnecessary, for if God is, then He is the God of science, too. If we must use a line, let it be horizontal.

Movie review: "Striped Pajamas"

No, I'm not Ebert or Rex Reed. I wouldn't give their critiques the time of day (nor would they mine). Regardless, Sunday night my wife, sons and I watched "The Boy in Striped Pajamas." An important film.

Parental stuff up front. No sex or foul language. Violence off screen and seen afterward in bruised faces. Nudity in the concentration camp at the end (men) and though nothing is seen.

Yes, it's another Holocaust movie (may God have mercy on us if we should ever become desensitized to them), but this film looks at the real horror that man unleashes upon man through the eyes of an eight-year old boy, the son of the camp commander. An extraordinary and compelling idea.

As the film progresses, this "normal" family comes to understand what their "normal" father does for a living. It's a microcosm of society. You have duty at all costs. You have duty for romance (or fill in your satisfier). You have moral repugnance. And you have confused innocence.

A well done, well filmed moral drama that does not assault the senses (what a relief). At the same time, it confronts you with the history that has been at a time when, once again, folks are playing loose and fast with morality and ethics. It also makes quite a statement, though most unintentional (perhaps), about state sponsored schooling.

A worthy rental for mid-teens and higher. The Boy in Striped Pajamas.

"Common ground"

The headline on CNN and Fox from President Obama's controversial address at Notre Dame emphasized his assertion that America needs to find "common ground" on this most divisive issue.

I agree. Let's start with the fact that the union of a sperm and an egg creates a human being. I think that would be superb common ground. It's not a dog. It's not a hippo (an hippo?). It's not a persimmon nor a perch. It's a person. That common ground would give it all the protection an innocent person should have under law. You know, all that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness jazz.

Others would prefer the common ground that we as human beings are free to choose our own destinies. I agree. But the law does not permit your freedom to crimp my freedoms much less end them. So it would seem that my common ground provides a more stable foundation from which to argue the abortion question.

Except...

If one concedes that the life within the womb is a human being, side arguments melt away. Yes, I can imagine things more horrible than rape and incest. The dismemberment of a baby comes to mind. What about the life of the mother? Usually that does not manifest itself in the first trimester. Considering the amazing strides of modern medicine, why abort? Why not rescue the baby from the womb? We have all heard the stories of mothers who would not abort their child despite the professional opinions of the doctors, and both mother and child are enjoying their lives with one another to this day. How often have you heard about the "foolish" mom who elected to go to term and both died? You haven't? Me, either.

When one side seeks valiantly to protect innocent life while the other seeks valiantly to maintain "reproductive freedom" while making the product of sexual relationships a non-issue, we will find no common ground.

--------------------
Thank you to all the Catholics that voiced their grief toward and opposition to Notre Dame's decision to let so pro-abortion a President speak at their commencement.

Just another day: Moral atrophy

Unused muscles shrink. Duh.

Last August, I finally stopped running with the hope that a nagging hammy strain would heal itself. No such luck. Now, nine months later, I'm on the threshold of a fitness test that will likely strain another muscle, this one about two feet higher and it pumps blood at regular intervals. I'm way out of shape!

At some point in the past, our country must have thought that it yanked it's moral hammy. Maybe we just thought that the ethical restraint was getting in the way of our license (or licentiousness), but if you don't exercise a bit of moral discipline, after a few decades of disuse you get a country in a state of obese, sofa-bound immobility, unable to make a moral judgment about the most obvious of issues. A couple of examples:

• Saw (take your pick). Haven't seen any of them. Nor will I. Reviews tell me enough. That this has become a huge profit-maker in Hollywood says loads about adult America, parental and not.


• Miss America. That it would be controversial to assert that marriage is between a man and a woman is nuts. That an overt homosexual would be asked to judge a beauty contest is nuttier still. That Ms. Prejean, the controversial contestant, would announce Christ as her foundation as her conviction that marriage is between a man and a woman after posing topless for whomever's camera completes the trifecta.


• Sweden. Going beyond our borders simply because so many in our nation think we should be emulating Europe. Swedish judges have ruled that it's hunky-dory to abort a child simply because you wanted a boy and conceived a girl (and vice-versa...here).


• Gay marriage. During the proverbial drip-drip of the homosexual marriage push, many argued that this would open Pandora's foul box to normalizing all deviance. "No way!" cried the homosexual crowd. Last night on Bill O'Reilly's eponymous "Factor," he brought to light a group in California arguing for "marriage rights" for triads (in case your wondering, that's a three-some, sex unspecified). The argument from one of the talking heads who felt that homosexual marriage was okay but a triad went to far was the ultimate in inane and incoherent drivel. We erased the boundary. All bets are off.


• Notre Dame. The most pro-abortion President our nation has seen to date has been asked to speak at a religious university whose fundamental position is opposition to abortion. Can you say "rational disconnect?" Then again, the President looses the restrictions upon abortion by granting terrorists freedoms that are fundamental to our citizens. Reality has become a Picasso.
  

As we continue to stuff our face with moral twinkies, our national heart attack cannot be far away. And it's bound to be a doozy.

For husband and wife: Problems in bed

One of the thorniest areas in marriage relationships and one of the least talked about areas within the church are one and the same, that is physical intimacy within marriage. I mean, it's not that hard to figure out how it works, is it? So what's the problem?

From cover to cover, the Bible makes no attempts to hide our proclivity for sexual problems. Polygamy abounds. Incest is not hidden. The daughter-in-law who seduces her father-in-law. Leviticus 18 condemns areas of deviation that would make most shudder. Adultery and intimate relations outside the bonds of marriage are routinely and roundly denounced. The first half-dozen chapters of Proverbs clarion a father's warning to his son about straying onto the path of sexual sin. Is it any wonder that all is not smooth sailing in the marriage bed between husband and wife?

God makes plain that physical intimacy is to be a good thing. You can start with the attire He first gave to Adam and Eve. Nada. They were to be one flesh. They were to cleave to one another. Procreation is certainly commanded but God created physical intimacy to be so much more. Delicious. Rapturous. Soul-knitting. Why would God's word indicate that her breasts were to satisfy? (Proverbs 5:17) Why would He include an entire book of some of the steamiest (and yet not pornographic) poetry ever recorded? (Song of Solomon) Why would He included warning after warning about the problems that would be birthed through not keeping the marriage bed pure? Why would the apostle Paul encourage frequency regarding physical intimacy (1 Corinthians 7) if this were not a good thing meant to cement, foster, cultivate, and exemplify intimacy that exists in the marriage relationship?

But if this is an area of friction and tension in my marriage, what do I do? We sure don't want to go the way of the world and make sex the object of the relationship. That seems to be what some churches are doing when they preach through "Seven Days to Great Sex." Sounds more like the garbage in the checkout aisle at the local supermarket. So where can a couple turn?

We're stuck. We probably don't want to talk with the spouse if we're already having issues in that area (even though they're the one we need to be talking to). Pride gets in the way of discussing it with a close friend. Who wants to admit to troubles betwixt the sheets? If you can't bring it up with your best bud who loves the Lord, are you going to be any more comfortable bringing it up with your pastor? Methinks not.

Conflict left festering often leads to sin in this area and others. It must be dealt with.

Beyond having a sound understanding of what God's word says about physical intimacy between husband and wife and submitting yourself thereto, I have read no more succinct a delineation of what the physical relationship means to the husband than that from columnist and radio personality Dennis Prager. Being a committed Jew, he considers the marriage relationship from a biblical perspective (albeit limited to the Old Testament) and sheds light into an area of turmoil too oft left hidden.

Much has been written about the woman. I intend no slight. Intimacy is intended for both. But of late, I've seen and heard precious little about the significance of physical intimacy for the husband intended to inform the wife.

I offer up these articles written last winter as fodder for you and your spouse toward working through any turbulence in your physical relationship. They are "clean." Don't let the titles throw you off; the columns are revelatory and worth your time. Read them here, part I, and here, part II.

Many happy returns.

QotD: General silliness

Colin Powell is not a conservative. Never was. Perhaps a teeny bit in the military realm. A very teeny bit. Certainly not in international politics. Definitely not in his domestic politics. Catch this up-chucking quote from a former military icon:

"Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans want more government in their lives, not less."

What's most troubling is that I believe he is right, but this is only so because I don't believe most people think too well anymore. With a non-stop frenzied assault upon our senses through every possible media imaginable, we are stinker thinkers. Honestly, how many people have spent more time than it takes a single song to conclude in our iPod headphones to think about a single issue? I indict myself with my words.

Thinking birthed America's Revolution, the Federalist papers, and the finest constitutional government the world has ever seen. Thinking brought about the Civil War. Men considered what the Constitution meant regarding states' rights and man's rights. Thinking birthed the Reformation and the Great Awakening as men considered the truth of God's word in light of the world around them.

We don't think much. Is my tummy sated? Who can satisfy my sexual itch? Do I have enough money to party this weekend or maybe get to South Padre during spring break? Is anything getting in my way that might impede me from getting and doing what I want?

That said, is it any wonder folks want the government doing things for them? If they thought through the horrors of letting the government root itself deeper in their personal lives, such a comment from so distinguished a gentleman would serve to dismiss him forever from public life as mindless radical who's not thought through effects of so terrible a cause.

Read Mark Steyn's take on General Powell's comments and the pending doom of conservatism in America here.

Judges

Many people are familiar with classic opening lines to classic literature. "Call me Ishmael." "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." But it's important to not only begin a story well, it's important to end well, too. So World Magazine is currently asking its readership to identify the best closing lines from the written word. Judges flashed into my mind.

No, Judges isn't a novel. It's history. It's part of the Bible. It is arguably the darkest, most grisly section in all the Bible. Many are familiar with some of its narratives. Therein you'll find Samson, the Bible's strong man. Gideon is in there, too. You know, the guy with the trumpet. There are parts of these guys' lives that I would have left out of the story because they don't make them sound very "spiritual." Samson had a thing for ladies. Not just any ladies. Ladies from nations God forbade the people of Israel to be messing with. He was overly cocky. Brash, even. Gideon was a bit of a coward. Hiding in a winepress to thresh the grain. Didn't trust God when God spoke to him directly. Asked for not one but two signs as confirmation that God really meant what he said.

Judges gets worse from there, but the fact that God saw fit to include horrifying and ugly histories of His people points like a spotlight to the truthfulness, the veracity, of His word to us. If a bunch of men were getting together and trying to make stuff up about God, they sure wouldn't have included the stories we find in Judges.

I finished Judges this morning. It concludes with a verse the writer of Judges includes four other times. As ancient Hebrew didn't have exclamation points or boldface or italics, repetition was used to emphasize a point. The author used this statement to bracket stories where the story itself turned up the volume to get the point across. The statement?

"Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

As I closed the book this morning to head out the door, my heart ached for my nation because that sounds like America, 2009. This is my people. Without an absolute standard from a sovereign God, everyone will do what was right in their own eyes because who then are you to tell me what to do?

Here's an excerpt from Judges 2.

¹¹ And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. ¹² And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. ¹³They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals... ¹⁴ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. ¹⁵Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

¹⁶ Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. ¹⁷Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so. ¹⁸Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. ¹⁹But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. ²⁰ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel...

An ominous way to end a book.

Inconsistency of the left

When it comes to moral and ethical politics, elected officials who say one thing and do another or take two contradictory positions are legion in Washington. Never before has a political movement tried to live out such contradictions as the political left in America today. There is perhaps no better image of proclaiming and believing two opposing views than Barack Hussein Obama.

Since taking office, the President has dismantled most every barrier erected by former presidents for making abortion rare. This week as he ponders the politics of a nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, President Obama has made plain that he will appoint a pro-abortion lawyer.

On the other side of the ethical arena, the President has called for closing Guantanamo Bay and exposing our interrogation techniques to bring such actions to an end. All of this in the name of civil rights, of acting human to our fellow man. Why is this an issue? First, these men are NOT prisoners of war and should not be afforded the rights of such under the Geneva Convention. Second, they are NOT US citizens and should not be afforded the rights of such under the Constitution. They are terrorists and, like the pirates off Somalia's coast, should be shot.

Innocent life gets every protection possible under law removed leaving it naked against a hostile world. Those guilty of atrocities against our nation get protections awarded to them beyond our law leaving them more armed and more equipped to blend into the society they so loathe.

We must extend the protections of humanity toward the innocent toward the defenseless. We must do everything in our power to bring the .45 caliber end of justice upon those who unleash their hatred upon American soil or Americans abroad. But in today's political Wonderland, we're giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Torture

Thanks to the handful of you that responded to the taxation poll, now removed. It looked like your standard bell curve. Same tax for all and a progressive percentage on the fringes but most favoring the same percentage for all. I wanted you to know I hadn't forgotten my promise to finish my taxing discussion. In time. Torture's the topic du jour. For you lassies, I'd particularly like your man-folk to read what follows.

I would love to provide you my own arguments regarding torture, but when someone else who writes tons better than you do pretty well blankets the topic in one succinct column, I'd simply be quoting that guy left and right. To that end, I commend to you Charles Krauthammer's superb take on torture here.

One aspect I'd like to emphasize: word's mean things. You see, my idea of torture does not constitute torture. One evening of MSNBC with Olbermann following Maddow following Matthews would be enough to get me to hand over bank account numbers and what remains of my IRAs. I can't much stomach Greta and she's on Fox. Having to sit through what vied for Best Picture at this year's Oscars might do it, too, though I have heard good things about Slumdog Millionaire. Not much else.

Nonetheless, none of these assaults against humanity constitute torture. Neither does commode flushing the Koran. Nor heaping Muslims into a sodomite pile.

The torture of John McCain is not the "enhanced interrogation" of Gitmo terrorists (oops, detainees...oops, not-quite-yet-citizens-of-the-US). Thirty years ago when someone spoke of torture, bodily damage came to mind. Dislocated shoulders and broken arms. Bamboo shoots 'neath the fingernails. Psychological techniques intended to destroy the mind. Much of what was unleashed upon Americans by North Korea and North Vietnam (what's up with the North? Their giving us Al Franken, too.) was punitive in nature. Sure if they could get a little info, too, that was just gravy on the rice, but oh, the joy of unleashing one's full wrath upon the western imperialists.

Such hellishness is not our way. Were the techniques of Gitmo made plain to Hanoi Hilton survivors, they would, to a man I surmise, have preferred to be in the hands of American interrogators.

That said, the questioning techniques preferred by Nancy, Hillary, Harry, and the rest of the Oprah rabble wouldn't get Rachel Ray to cough up a new recipe. So, to get a good take on torture, stop reading my ramblings and go treat your mind to Krauthammer.

UPDATE: From my Facebook page (what a geek!). An article, similar content by Thomas Sowell (here). Another guy who few can say it better than. Worth your five minutes. My two cents.